The Origin of Boy

And this is the entry in which I profile the boyness. I think I'll just do each kid. But this one is all-about-the-boy.

When I had my first I tried my hardest to be all gender-neutral and crap. I believed that classic hyperbole: they're only different because of social influence. Well, if my firstborn's love of ponytails, butterflies, and princess crowns wasn't enough to burst that particular bubble (and I tell you, it wasn't, because she also LOVED RC cars and airplanes...), Boyness broke it once and for all.

Now, it isn't like boyness came out throwing sticks and whacking balls and vrooming cars around the room. Next best thing though. He came out posterior and one pound heavier than his sister, 7 minutes after we entered the hospital. He came out and...OMG, this is NOT LIKE my first. He is...Fran. I'm not sure that one is mine. Are you sure he didn't get switched in the 2 seconds between coming out and getting handed to me? Sure? Errr, did you clone Fran and not tell me? If that resemblence was obvious then, it is blaring frigging clear now.

Within 15 minutes Fran had dubbed him "glow worm".

At his one week checkup he had gained 2 pounds on nothing but breastmilk. It wasn't that he was so demanding, in fact, he was worlds and worlds easier than his sister. In fact, it was probably because he was so easy. He'd guzzle down a full load of mama-has-oversupply breastmilk, and then just sit there happly milk-drunk for an hour.

By two months (this picture was taken a week short of the two month mark) he weighed 22 lbs. This is the exact weight of my 18 month old daughter. Monster boy. We never had to worry about cosleeping with multiple children. He was only about 4lbs lighter than his big sister (who was 2 years older than him!). The two pictures were, yes, taken at 1 week and at almost-2-months, but for perspective, DD was an average-ish sized kid and DS was/is huge...in the second photo with DH...my DH is not a small man. This is where boyness' size comes from.

Anywho, I cannot detail the rest of his development like that...life progressed with decent predictability. He walked early and talked late, toilet trained early and weaned late, just like his sister. He took the coming of another sibling with relative ease, just like his sister. He grew and grew off the charts still, but at a very healthy weight/height ratio. Always a big kid.

Behavior problems started to crop up around when he turned 4. OK, so they started months before that, but they began to really come to a head around then. Just when I was at the point of "what am I going to do, this kid is driving me to a serious, drive-to-the-hospital breakdown!?" L, like the good friend she is, had a lightbulb moment and suggested dairy allergy. That is a saga all on its own but to understand boyness now, you need to understand that to see violence in him, just feed him a dairy product and wait 24 hours. I guarantee more running, disobedience, screaming, and sibling-and-friend head-bashing than you ever wanted to see. If you want a sweet, talkative, slightly-shy boy, for fucksake, make sure he doesn't have any dairy.

Hmmm, what else can I say about boyness?

In a conversation containing 1000 words, 449 of those will be "Star Wars".

Random thoughts expressed last week included "Santa's Cool" "Can we have Episode 5!?" and "*sigh* I like to play computer games."

He needs more attention than I give him. He's been acting attention-starved lately. Must remedy that. I forget often that he is only 4. He looks at least 6 and can often pull off a fairly convincing rendition of "6yo boy", and I sometimes forget that he's a 4yo that WANTS me to pick him up and cuddle him and kiss him on the cheek.